Dias Ex Machina to release NeuroSpasta - GSL Cyberpunk

[DiasExMachina]

DIAS EX MACHINA TO RELEASE GSL CYBERPUNK IN 2009

In 2009, Dias Ex Machina will begin to develop and release non-fantasy role playing games which will be 4th Edition compatible and 100% GSL compliant. These games will be developed from a similar baseline and will not only be compatible with each other, but also with Amethyst and most other GSL products.

“Everything can be Manipulated”

In the near future, after growing pressure from charter countries, the United Nations shifted their headquarters from New York to a sovereign, self-governing floating city-state between Qatar and Bahrain. It was designated the Special Administrative Municipal Autonomous Zone and christened “Archon” by official mandate. Eventually it went by another name: “Nowhere”. It was built from the ground up as a shining example of the potential and progress humanity had hoped to achieve. It was to be a beacon of peace in a world plagued by conflicts triggered by ethnic violence and starving resources.

The dream faded quickly as Archon became a powder keg, a political microcosm that reflected the hostilities of the rest of the world. Not only did the city have to defend its residents from themselves, but also from terrorists seeking to break apart the new world order. To ensure peace in the city, a counter-terrorism unit was formed to specifically deal with external and internal threats to national security, the Division of Public Safety. The DPS was granted power under the Special Executive Authority, a UN appointed position dealing with threats to state health. They had no oversight and were given jurisdiction over the entire state, including the UN General Assembly building and the more than 200 embassies contained in the city’s borders.

Archon’s unique feature is its parallel reality. It is the first city existing both in a physical world and in a virtual one—two realities which occupy the same space. One might question what’s truly genuine and what’s an illusion. In this city, as is in most of the world, everyone is connected 24/7 to a digital network where part of their memory rests in cyberspace, where your thoughts and even your reality can be modified. Those who defend the city must do so in both worlds. These threats are not data pirates plugging themselves into terminals but individuals that could take control of human thought, hack directly into people's brains, altering their actions, what they see, and even aspects of their personality. As the world balances on the edge of chaos, all eyes have turned to one city to guide the way.

NeuroSpasta is a new role playing game directly inspired by the new generation of cyberpunk, dealing with the issues of perceived reality and concepts of self-identity in a growing environment prone to anarchy. It deals with political tensions, international espionage, terrorism, and cybercrime. “I feel the genre has made some real leaps since Sterling and Gibson paved the first few steps,” says game designer Chris Dias. “NeuroSpasta takes encouragement from these contemporary examples like The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell along with inspiration from the Bourne films and “24” while also trying to offer an original vision people will find interesting. We wanted to every idea to make sense—to make it a believable setting by rooting with a lot of modern concerns dealing with international relations, ethic violence, and the growing globalization.”

In NeuroSpasta, players will be able to create not only traditional physical characters but virtual ones as well--imitation or real personalities that can interact with the outside world. Characters will not only be able to fire weapons and blow up cars but also “hack” opponents on the fly, altering their senses, even killing them. There will be vehicle combat, power armor, robots, dozens of weapons and a full spectrum of cybernetics.

NeuroSpasta will be 100% GSL compliant and fully compatible with many other 4th Edition books, including Amethyst. It has no distributor so NeuroSpasta is currently destined for PDF and POD but Dias Ex Machina knows the end result will match the gloss and finish of their other projects.

There is no confirmed release date for NeuroSpasta but DEM aims to have it completed for the late fall.


Dias Ex Machina received critical acclaim and fan-support for its Amethyst role-playing game, being awarded an Honourable Mention at the 2008 Ennies for best setting. Upon announcement of the 4th Edition update to Amethyst, response was universally positive, eventually leading to it being picked up and distributed by Goodman Games for release this spring.

[Jack99]

Sounds pretty interesting!

[Reveille]

Damn, thats ten levels of awesome! I'm not much into 4E, but you've already made a sale.

[DiasExMachina]

Thanks. I hope to justify your confidence with it. You will be suprised what 4th Ed can do with this idea. Check back at Dias Ex Machina for updates...

[DiasExMachina]

It would be important to point out that to call ourselves 4ed Cyberpunk may infringe on RTG's Cyberpunk game, a publication I personally love and have played more than any other game. So it would be more specific to call us GSL Cyberpunk than 4th Edition Cyberpunk to avoid confusion.

[benensky]

How are you planning to release this? Hope I do not have to wait months for one big setting/campaign guide. It would be cool if can release modules of races and classes and even weapons’ supplements and then release the big campaign guide at the end with all the stuff included. I would be glad to buy the race or class books as they came out for $1 to $2 each. That way you could also build up interest and help others who want to play cyberpunk but not your campaign. If the price of the setting/campaign guide was less than the whole of all the modules then it would be worth buying also!
-benensky

[silentounce]

Can you clue us in on the derivation of the name at all? To me it sounds like something Italian zombies would eat.

[DiasExMachina]

Originally Posted by benensky

How are you planning to release this? Hope I do not have to wait months for one big setting/campaign guide. It would be cool if can release modules of races and classes and even weapons’ supplements and then release the big campaign guide at the end with all the stuff included. I would be glad to buy the race or class books as they came out for $1 to $2 each. That way you could also build up interest and help others who want to play cyberpunk but not your campaign. If the price of the setting/campaign guide was less than the whole of all the modules then it would be worth buying also!
-benensky

Originally Posted by silentounce

Can you clue us in on the derivation of the name at all? To me it sounds like something Italian zombies would eat.

Funny...

It will be smaller than Amethyst (which is 256 pages) but it won't be as small as you may want. We can't commit yet but we want the first book to cover enough to play the game with a single purchase.

And as for the name...hmm...part of me doesn't want to explain it just yet to see if someone can figure it out. It's really not that hard if someone does a little research. The slogan is "Everything can be Manipulated" which should be a hint. Eventually, I will answer that question...

[silentounce]

All I got from my quick research was a moth.

Is that what you were going for? The whole transformation thing?

http://www.ento.csiro.au/gallery/mot...elaneurospasta

Nevermind, I just found this:
"One of the earliest Greek references to what is often thought to have been puppets is by Xenophon in his Symposium of 381 BC, supposedly describing a banquet of 40 years before, therefore in 421 BC. The Greek word here usually translated as 'puppets' is neurospasta, which literally means 'string-pulling', from nervus, meaning either sinew, tendon, muscle, string, or wire, and span, to pull."

[DiasExMachina]

There you go...

[DiasExMachina]

Now that's out of the way, we have not been ignoring NeuroSpasta. In fact, it still receives hours of work every day. We could be enlisting playtesters as early as April. Those interested should contact me.

Meanwhile, I wanted to dive into some of the game concepts we have been working on. Yes, lifepaths from Amethyst are still present though they are significantly downtuned from their fantasy counterparts. Amethyst's were mostly region specific and had benefits as minor as skill increases to major class alterations. The latter is not present in NeuroSpasta and we have mostly just skill bonuses. This is because since we've added a level of complexity already with the Ladders, we didn't want to burden it too much with unnecessary rules.

I can confirm that we have four races for NeuroSpasta: Nugenic, Prosthetic, True-Born, and Virtuant. NeuroSpasta's tagline of "Everything can be Manipulated" translates to every part of the game. This includes our races. Not a single race gains a specific attribute bonus. Knowing that, we were still able to make the four races extremely unique. Virtuant, the hardest one to define, ended up as one of my favorites, not because of their bonuses, but because of what they can do as simulated personalities. Its real "out-of-the-box" thinking. For your homebrew gamers out there, you can always ignore whatever races don't fit your setting.

Here is the drum-roll. By current count, we have 11 single-build classes. Yes, you read right. All of them should fit in the same page count as 5 traditional multi-build classes. When I say "single-build" I don't mean single powers, just not as many powers to choose from at each level as what you would get with fighters or paladins. The variety of character generation comes from the ladders. Ladders are chosen at first level, like classes. You gain all the bonuses from your ladder and your class but while classes are very specific, ladders are much more generic--based more on your attributes than your actual role. Current ladder count stands at six and each one focuses on a specific two-attribute combination (Juggernaut--Strength/Constitution, Runner--Dexterity/Intelligence, etc). Taking these into account, you have 66 combinations to choose from. With that under your belt, a DM could create any science-fiction or modern game using these base rules. To fits these all in the first book, we won't be going into paragon paths or epic destinies or include any opponents or equipment over 11th level, though our classes and ladders will go all the way to 30.

Here is some cool news. The setting is getting a major boost in authenticity. As many who have followed this know, NeuroSpasta is set in an UN-controlled city in the no-too-distant future--a future we are trying to make as realistic and as plausible as possible. To that end, we have brought on board a political and international relations advisor. He's a lawyer and a professor and Pittsburgh’s School of Law, with a specialty in international law with a unique perspective on the dealings of the UN. This level of detail is exactly what we are shooting for with NeuroSpasta and despite our cybernetics and virtual personalities and nanotechnologies; underneath it all is a political landscape of a future which could possibly exist...

...but, you know, probably not...

Me out.

[DiasExMachina]

I love it when I drop breadcrumbs. So many questions.

Multiclassing will be the same as in the Player’s Handbook. No reason to suspect that will change. Amethyst features multi-build classes because the paths were very generic (Stalker, Grounder, etc). This was intentional because we wanted to present them in the same vein as fantasy characters. We wanted NeuroSpasta’s to be specific to greater expand the possibilities of more classes later and assist those wanted to homebrew their own games. So here, we have Sniper, Medic, Hacker, and so forth. The expanded possibilities for variety come with ladders. They offer more abilities that compensate for the lack of magic items. We offer six ladders and doing math (tapping the table repeatedly), there are fifteen combinations. Though we have ones like Dex/Int as well as Dex/Str, we don’t have, say, Con/Cha. There are certain combinations that don’t make a lot of sense. Just look the attribute combinations in the PHB for guidance. That is not saying we won’t create an Int/Con ladder later, but we want these to make sense and not waste space for ladders that seem out of place. These are not “Strong Hero” types but “Juggernaughts” and “Born Leaders.”

The system is still in the prototype phase so I can’t go into it just now about this whole thing, but what I will say that ladders offer alternative powers and additional abilities throughout character progression in the same way magic items can. All the powers and features offered reflect the theme of the ladder. Since classes are single-build with only 1 or 2 powers each level, you get additional variety from tapping the ladder. So you may have 1 utility power at 2nd level in your class but two more from your ladder. So when you reach 2nd level, you have a choice of 3 to choose from. This is the limit of the complexity we plan on. There is no reason, whatsoever to convolute it anymore than it has to be.

So to sum up, you choose a ladder and a class. Classes cannot be altered because that’s in the GSL. The only thing you’ll notice is that they are smaller. Ladders have features at different levels and alternate powers and are not based on your role in the group but your basic statline.

And just for those people trying to find holes in our plan:
What about those that just want role-playing over combat? Yup, we thought of that.
What about not having to buy new weapons every second level? Yep, thought of that to.
What about the lack of monsters dishing out cash and prizes? Oh yeah, got that handled.
What about those wielding cybernetics getting more powerful than “fleshies”? Totally on top of that one.
Lack of magical enhancement? Done.

…and people are saying you can’t do anything with the GSL…

The phone’s on the hook, Scott.

[DiasExMachina]

Three weeks ago, we finished the ladders--the biggest rule addition we have made to the 4ED ruleset. After our Close Combat Specialist class was finished, I dared my crew to create characters for that single class, but select a different ladder for each one. With our new batch of martial feats, we started up our first Mixed Martial Arts brawl. I drew an octagon on the map and we went one-on-one with our builds.

I played an aging shaolin kung-fu master. Conan played a calculating sambo wrestler, Mike, a massive juggernaught with meaty fists, and Schuyler, an agile taekwondo expert. Yes, there really is all that variety out of single class dependant on your ladder and feats chosen. I won’t say who won (IT WAS MEEE!).

Over the past two weeks, we got all our other classes down. These include Infiltrator, Faceman, Sniper, Gunslinger, and Combat Authority. We merged Engineer into Manipulator, and Driver into Faceman, though you can still choose driver powers via feats. Manipulator is our hacker class. We have been trying to approach the vernacular of NeuroSpasta with a fresh perspective. So gone are the “deckers” and the “riggers” and the “jacking-in” and the “plugging-in”. A few days ago, we got to looking back and reminiscing about older cyberpunk novels and games of the 80s and 90s and snickered at the inaccuracy of their predictions. Although the concepts of an urban sprawl and the privatization of the government as well as the encroaching control of corporations were prophetic, few of them could properly predict the advancement of computerization and the speed in which computers would evolve in processing power and graphic potential. The hardest hit were the role playing games, which endorses truly fantastic and ludicrous concepts for the sake of "being cool", regardless of its logical application. Manipulator is more than just a corporate hacker, as they are able to tap into someone's blackberry, Iphone, or even their brain implants. And no, hacking does not take place on a grid map or a hexboard. There is no graphical representation of it at all. This was a simple decision as the concept of adding a dimension to something which has none seemed against our mission-statement.

So yeah, there could be a functional product by the end of March. Does that mean it will be out sooner? Nope, just more time for testing. The game still won't be released until the end of the year. Hell, we don't even have a logo yet.

[DiasExMachina]

My rants against BSG and Caprica aside, I have been a little off the grid the last few days. Conan and I have been picking apart the NeuroSpasta rules left and right, top to bottom. The setting is still lacking in detail and that is going to be the direction I take for the next few weeks. We have played around with a few classes, specifically with Manipulator, which can make or break the game. I know people will object to the fact that our hacking rules do not require a map. There were many reasons for this. For one: it's just not realistic. Two: We don't expect the entire group to create hackers so to be bogged down with a battle only one or two people will play seemed...well...selfish. Most hacking battles take only minutes and occur during physical combat. Of course, battle servers and giant AIs may be different but they still won't measure to the length of full gridmap combat. Manipulators have powers caused "Hacks" and can enhance those with programs and feats that expand one's repertoire.

I can also safely announce the full list of NeuroSpasta classes:

Combat Authority
Faceman
Gunslinger
Heavy
Infiltrator
Man-At-Arms
Manipulator
Sniper
Specialist
Vanguard

This is in addition to the six ladders which can be combined with any of these.

I have stuck by my guns and refused to insert a katana in the game...
...but there will be chainsaw...

[DiasExMachina]

NeuroSpasta continues to chug along. Currently, our real dilemma is understanding the financial system. Since we don't have enhancement items save for a handful of skill bonus items, there is simply no place for players to sink their hard-earned money....so we created new sinks. As mentioned, we had cybernetics and a few weapons, armour and programs, but several classes and ladders don't have that option. If you are a prosthetic, you have tonnes of options. If you are a manipulator, you have as well, but classes like faceman or specialist may not have one...so we designed some great ways to spend your cash. For one, we are giving the specialist the capability to control robots and weapon turrets...which is when we realized on top of accidentally recreating games like Gears of War, Mirror's Edge, and Splinter Cell; we have also recreated Team Fortress.

As for the faceman, which also doubles as a driver, we added in vehicles. Now, that may not fully solve the problem since you can buy a nice car at 1st level and never need to upgrade...so we decided to include car modifications. I, being a tuner-nut, should have thought of this earlier, but creds go to Cam and Conan for offering this one up. I have owned eight cars in a very short tenure and three of them have been modified for street legal use, so I should have known better. So even though you can buy an awesome car at first level, you can spend the rest of your level progression making that car perfect, with increases to its manoeuvrability, armour, and hit points.

Another big addition recently is some rule clarifications with our new firearm rules, which will probably go into Amethyst as errata. These are not rule changes, but rules to make what we did make more sense.

Finally, in an effort to showcase what we have done with the game, I decided to create a mini-module everyone can download for free. It will include 5 pre-generated characters using the NeuroSpasta system and place them in a-shot unique adventure outside of the setting's canon. It is currently called, "Lost in Happyland" and will be available in July, well after the FreeRPGDay release of Amethyst. Personally, if this module wasn't canon, I would publish professionally--I think it's that awesome. I have to stop myself for spending TOO much time on it.

[DiasExMachina]

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